Posted
by
michael
on Tuesday September 28, 2004 @04:00PM
from the think-on-your-feet dept.

slithytove writes "As many of us are aware, the presidential debates are currently controlled by an organization called the Commision on Presidential Debates. As anyone who's seen a presidential debate recently could guess, the CPD does just what our two major parties want: exclude thirdparties and impose rules that make the event more of a joint press conference than a debate. Non-establishment candidates Michael Badnarik and David Cobb will be having an actual debate this Thursday. After debating each other, they will be rebutting the points Bush and Kerry make in their pseudo-debate. Free Market News will be streaming it and providing a download afterwards."

and the u.s. will always be that way because of the nature of the system. in a presidential election, second place (let alone third or fourth) counts for nothing.

in a parliamentary system, by contrast, parties with lower levels of support get to have input. either they form the opposition or join the opposition coalition or, more effectively, become part of a governing coalition and weild some degree of political power.

witness canada: the dominant liberals alienated both the conservative and liberal portions of the population (no mean feat). however, none of the other parties were generally considered experienced enough to rule... so the electorate handed the liberals a minority victory.

to govern, the minority government now has to form coalitions with other parties to acheive enough votes to pass bills. in this case, the party the liberals allied with was the left-of-centre new democratic party. the result is that the ndp now has a fair amount of "pivotal power" - and given that helth care and other social programme issues were a big deal during the election, this is probably a Good Thing.

in a minority government situation, the opposition parties also have increased power. since the the government can fall to a well-organized attack by the opposition, the liberals are less likely to antagonize stornaway.

the result is: less people are alienated in a parliamentary system. if you voted for gore in 2000, your vote was completely wasted. but no matter who you voted for in canada last april (unless you voted green, as i did) there's someone in the government representing you.

The original scheme was that there was only a presidential race, not a vice-presidential one. Whoever lost the presidential election became vice-president. The two candidates were expected to set aside their personal differences and work together for the good of the (then-newborn) Union, and this scheme provides some balance of influence as well.

It only worked for the first few presidents, then they threw that approach out and replaced it with the "we can't not hold a grudge; I will never speak to my o

The two main parties have zero interest in diluting their mindshare. Things will never change if you leave it to them.

Currently, the sole purpose behind 3rd party candidates is to be heard. The more good points they make, the more people will question the dominant parties. Eventually it reaches a critical mass and change will happen.

Yes we are a two party system, but a third party has history of being able to create change by changing the dialogue. A perfect example is is Ross Perot. He changed the conversation. It became about balancing the budget and such. It has been the case throughout American history too, sadly, I can't give examples, I just remember it has.:) Any history buffs out there to support this with real historical info? The unfortunate thing is the fact that you have to be a billionaire to get that much access no

One problem I have, though, is that my respect for third parties isn't much higher than it is for the "main" two. Usually, when one says, for example, "I hate Bush and Kerry," one is usually instructed to vote third party. But where does one turn when one feels that NO ONE up there is even semi-decent?

To run for president you need money. Want to be on the ballot? You've got to collect thousands of signatures in each state to get on. Did you get on the ballot? Good, now you've got to convince a majority of the people in each state that you'd be a better president then the other guys. So lets say for a moment that you found a gaggle of rich philanthropists to buy your airtime on major television and radio networks along with print advertisements and a public speaking tour. Think you might have a chance? Nope, cause you can get millions of votes and not a single one that counts (electoral).

No one has a chance. Average Joe can't run for president, nor can hyper-intelligent Prof. Joe.

We have had other parties in the past BTW, but basically we've always had 2 parties.

What you're describing is basically a Catch-22 situation. The 2-party system has to be changed before someone not in one of the two major political parties can win, but the system won't change unless something major happens to shake it up... like a third-party candidate winning.

Sorta. In the past typically one party becomes very un-popular (federalists, whigs, etc.), and the other party sorta takes over. Then that party fractures into two parties. Lather, rinse, repeat. Though we have had the current parties for some time, and they are still pretty evenly-split, so it's doubtful that any other party will really have a chance.

What I *do* see as a use for the third/forth/fifth/etc. parties, is that they are a sort of test as to what the non-two party affiliated folks are thinking. For instance, the Democratic party can look to the green party members as sort of it's "far left", and gauge whether that's the direction the party may need to move in (or away from). Should the Green party start to gain momentum, I'd bet the Democrats would start picking up some of their platform (and similar for Republicans and Libertarians).

Consider my theory: That the republicans are actually left-wing and liberal in the traditional sense of the words.

Consider their policies. Consider their budget. Consider the constant "everything is different post 9/11, and things can never be done the same way". The opposition to two hundred year traditions. The utter outrage at international agreements which, like or not, we agreed to.

Put together, it looks to me like someone is misrepresenting themselves. Hmm?

I've posted this before - and I'll post again. Peoples political core beliefs tend to be two dimensional, while our political system is one dimensional. That's the reason we have the terms "Social Conservative" or "Fiscal Conservative" vs. "Socially Liberal" or "Fiscal Liberal".

Many people vote their religeon, others their social values, and still others on how they feel the government should run in regards to both personal and governmental financial responsibility. That's why I think the whole left/rig

"democracy
1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives."

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Law:

"democracy
1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free

No. The USA is not a "democratic republic" in the areas we're talking about. It is a pure republic, where laws are made without the input of the people, essentially by fiat, where presidents are elected not as the people want, but as the duly financed and power-machine inserted representatives of the military industrial complex decide.

Oh, we do get to choose between the two people that the machine produces. Fun, eh? So, let's examine the process. First, those with money (nominally the political parties, b

There are a ton of rules, but I think the most recent changes that had some people angry was that it is traditional to allow audience members to ask questions "town meeting" style. Instead new rules state that audience members will submit questions to the moderator before hand, and are not allowed to in any way deviate from their submitted questions, make comments, etc.

Having specific topics is part of what most of the people opposed are arguing AGAINST, since it can lead to ignoring issues that neither candidate wants to talk about (Like the looming 70 trillion dollar deficit when everyone retires all of a sudden)

PS: you are now listed as a foe, because no person of sound mind can also be a republican, and I don't like people who are not of sound mind.

PS: you are now listed as a foe, because no person of sound mind can also be a republican, and I don't like people who are not of sound mind.

I guess you'd better list me as a foe since I'm a Republican as well. BTW, I registered as a Republican back in 2000 to support Sen. McCain. I also joined the College Republicans, where its members were planning on voting for Bush by default. I've talked them into giving Sen. McCain a chance and they agreed to join me to hear him speak when he has planning to come to town.

I also had many friends who were in the College Democrats that were Bradley supports. Bradley was my second choice so I organized a bipartisan effort between the College Republicans and Democrats (wasn't too hard since most of us were moderats) for on-campus voter registration drive. Sadly, both McCain and Bradley lost the primaries, and no, I did not vote for either Bush or Gore.

I'm not planning on voting for Bush this year, but I may end up voting for Kerrey as "lesser of two evils" depending on what he says on the debate.

Personally, I think that no person of sound mind can also sterotype so blantly, but just disagreeing with me doesn't necessarily make you wrong (although I reserve the right to disagree), and thus will not have you or anyone else on my foe list. Life's too short to be closed minded, IMHO.

go to OpenDebates.org [opendebates.org]. Click on "issue" if you want the full scoop on the objections. Do you support scripted debates with no invites to 3rd,4th,5th party candidates?

From OpenDebates.org: Under CPD sponsorship, the major party candidates secretly design all the elements of the formats. Consequently, challenging questions, assertive moderators, follow-up questions, candidate-to-candidate questioning, rebuttals and surrebuttals are often excluded from the presidential debates. The CPD's formats prevent in-depth examination of critical issues, and allow the candidates to the deliver pre-packaged soundbites that are repeated over, and over, and over again on the campaign trail.

Presidential debates were run by the civic-minded and non-partisan League of Women Voters until 1988, when the national Republican and Democratic parties seized control of the debates by establishing the bi-partisan, corporate-sponsored Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). Posing as a nonpartisan institution committed to voter education, the CPD has continually and deceptively run the debates in the interest of the national Republican and Democratic parties, not the American people.

What are your objections to the rules of the presidential debate? they seem pretty reasonable to me.

Are you joking?

* Exclusion of third-party candidates: This is a problem because, without appearing on debates and being otherwise shut out of the media, third-party candidates have a hard time getting their message across. Polls indicate that the majority of Americans want more views expressed and candidates present in our debates, but the commission denies them this.

* Under-handed questions: Not only are topics that are to be discussed known beforehand, but there are virtually no surprises or tough questions. Answers are therefore heavily scripted, repetative, and boring. Viewership for the debates has declined steadily over the years.

* "Taboo" subjects ignored entirely: I think it is important to hear the Greens/Libertarians/Independants view on the legitimacy of the multibillion dollar war on drugs, and to hear Kerry's/Bush's defense of it. How come this issue is not discussed? Oh, that's right - its off limits for some reason. The War on Drugs is just a drop in the bucket - there are many more issues that deserve thorough and diverse debate, but are ignored entirely.

The truth of the matter is that Kerry and Bush would have a hard time defending themselves against any of the three parties I mentioned. The "Commission" (which is made up of the two major parties) is really just protecting their interests by excluding them, at the expense of an informed American public. How anyone could continue to vote for the two major parties is beyond me...

I think the whole concept of using polling as a way of deciding eligibility is pretty morally bankrupt. I've suspected for a while that the reason for that is to make it possible for the major parties to manipulate third parties out of the contest. Perot gave them a good scare in '92, and they've been tightening the screws on our republic ever since.

Eligibility should be decided on a more legalistic basis: if the electoral votes of the states that a candidate is officially ballot-qualified for exceeds 270

Did Slashdot block off non-USA IP addresses to the politics section? Nope.

I'd actually like to hear more non-US input to the politics section. The USA is so large that most people growing up here never need to cross an international border, which inevitably leads to a lack of knowledge regarding other countries (even Canada and Mexico).

There are issues in the US campaigns right now that other countries have already addressed or at least debated in one form or another. An obvious one is health care, for example. If anything, providing information about whether Canada's or Great Britain's health care systems are any good or not can only help people in the US better understand the issue. It would also be very interesting to hear about what foreign media report about the US, since American media is understandably biased (American journalists reporting on American events).

Yeah, the only interesting thing that is allowed are hypothetical questions. One I would ask Bush would be:

What would you call two people that under an investigation that require all of the following to be true in order to participate in that investigation? 1) That the two people must be allowed to testify jointly 2) That they would not be required to take an oath before testifying; 3) That the testimony would not be recorded electronically or transcribed, and that the only record would be notes taken by one of the commission staffers; and finally 4) That these notes would not be made public.

For those that don't know these were the requirements posed by Bush and Cheney in order to participate in the investigation of the largest attack on our nation within our borders.

Um... they didn't have to testify at all - due to separation of powers. Since this wasn't an impeachment hearing (at least not yet) or independent council investigation, the congress has no business investigating the office of the president. All of the stipulations you mention were specifically put in place to change the tone of the interview from being one of investigators investigating the president, to one of two equal branches of government having a dialogue. I think Bush also released some sort of statement saying to the effect that his meeting with the committee was not to be the basis of any future precedent.

Indeed, they learn a whole battery of rhetorical tricks specifically to avoid having to deal with hypotheticals. Watch the next time you see somebody pose one to a politician -- any politician -- and you'll immediately see that, no matter what their answer, it has nothing to do with the hypothetical. Which is a shame, since hypotheticals can be useful ways to see how someone thinks; but maybe that's the reason why they avoid them so assiduously...

You think Badnarik and Cobb are more worthy to be called the third party candidates?

Get real now. Ralph Nader is registering 1 percent in the polls. He is more worthy of being in the debates than these two clowns.

Hardly anybody knows who Badnarik and Cobb are, why they hell should they be in the major leagues? Maybe if they ran a better campaign, got the names on the ballots, and polled better than 0%, they would be on prime time. As it is, I have no problem excluding any yahoo from the debate just because they think they belong.

Badnarik's name is on the ballot in 49 states. He's not on the ballot in NH because someone in the NH Libertarian Party failed to get the paperwork in on time.

If Badnarik and Cobb were invited to the debates, then people would know who they are and could hear them speak.

Maybe, if 3rd parties weren't so roundly shut out by the ruling oligarchy, more people would actually be interested enough to vote, and just maybe we could have some real change in policy, instead of six or one or half-dozen of the other.

The opinions of people like Mr. Larry J. Schutter [64.233.161.104] of the Turtle Party [aol.com] and Darren Karr [darrenforpresident.com] of Party-X [party-x.org] are every bit as valid as those of Badnarik and Cobb. Likewise, they all share the same chance of winning said office. What makes Badnarik and Cobb more deserving of a debate than any of the other "Dark Horse" candidates?

My personal preference for the threshhold of who should be in the debates is this:

Add up the total electoral votes for all states on which the candidate is on the ballot. If this number is enough to gain election, the candidate should be involved in the debates. So if you can get on the ballot in Texas, California, New York, Florida, and a few other states, you should be eligible for the debates.

I guess you never took a debate class. Debate is a skill, a methodology of speaking applied to the facts that is not designed to elucidate facts, but to persuade the audience, sometimes flying in the face of the facts. A skilled debator will win a debate regardless of wheteher he believes in his point or even has ample facts to support his case. Truth and debate are strange bedfellows.

Political platforms are supposed to convey the facts about what a political candidate stands for

Anyone who has read my posts can quickly guess I am a republican, but this "debate" process really turns my stomach. Practiced questions, scripted answers, attempts at "humor", and no outside candidates is unacceptable. We need these third, 4th, 5th etc party candidates pushing the mainstream runners to answer questions they don't want to answer. On paper Bush and Kerry are both so equally horrible that it is impossible to distinguish between them. Putting a strong third party runner in there with them with unscripted questions is exactly what we need to see what they really are. It amazes me they are both (Bush and Kerry) so fearful of getting a question they aren't ready for or being upstaged by someone actually in touch with true American feelings that they are their debate-fixing group make it impossible to find out anything that resembles the truth.

I've said it many times... we have got to get a strong third party in place and soon to push the political mountain or we are going to watch these two parties merge into one uncontrollable monster.

I've said it many times... we have got to get a strong third party in place and soon to push the political mountain or we are going to watch these two parties merge into one uncontrollable monster.

Words are cheap. You can say it many times, and you can be right. What's the difference between somebody who can't read, and somebody who doesn't read? Nothing. Your wisdom doesn't matter if it's not translated into action.

Why don't YOU start such a party? You say "we" which implies you and at least one other person. Start this party you speak of - get funding, find a candidate if not yourself!

See, the USA is politically "open source". Anybody can make their dent, and the rules are reasonably simple and apply to everybody.

Just as we have Microsoft ruling the computer technology scene as a Monopoly, the Right/Left wings grapple in a Machiavelian struggle, swinging us "right" and "left" while moving us forward towards....?

Ross Perot almost did it [reformparty.org]. For a while, there, it actually looked as though he was going to win the presidency!

You could, too. We need an impassioned, trusted, charismatic, reasonable-sounding candidate who's willing to go the mile, and it would be a LONG mile.

I've considered joining the fray a few times, myself. Whether or not I'm "impassioned" enough or "charismatic" is an determination best left to listeners.

You have tremendous power in cable-access media. You can produce a broadcast quality show with a budget of under $50/week. (I know, I've done it!) FCC rules require this community-access television to be funded - it's just that few people actually stand up and produce the programming. Once a show is produced, it only requires a local sponsor to air the show in each community.

In the last third party debate Badnarik mentioned eliminating the Federal Reserve. He suggests using the American Liberty Currency [libertydollar.org]as an alternative currency that is backed by gold and silver. I think this is an excellent idea.

That doesn't make it not a pyramid scheme. It just makes it a very short pyramid (three levels: you, the associate who signs you up, and them). It still uses Multi-Level Marketing to expand. It compares itself to PayPal or Amazon, but it is very different.

PayPal and Amazon collects money for services and goods. They then take a portion of the money that they collect and use it for marketing. One method of marketing is to pay for referrals. Note tha

Badnarik mentioned eliminating the Federal Reserve. He suggests using the American Liberty Currency as an alternative currency that is backed by gold and silver. I think this is an excellent idea.

OK, but why do you think that? I followed your link to find out for myself, and I concluded that this idea is completely kooky. Aside from all the weird rubbish about international bankers etc, why do you think it would be a good idea to yoke the value of your currency to a pair of commodities? Yes, inflation and

I wish Slashdot had a nutritional information label, so that I could look at it and see if it had any non-troll content.

The "official" debates are highly flawed, but to call them pseudo-debates because you don't like them is absurd. They are real debates, with real moderation and real issues. Many complain that there's really one Republicrat party with the same ideals, but I suggest that it only seems that way if your own interests swing wildly to one end of the political spectrum. Wake up, radicals, most people congregate somewhere near the center. It's generally only the unstable nations with strong factions at the extremes. I grow weary of people who demand instant change, and don't care if it's against the public will or good because they're sure they're right. That kind of thinking got us the Alien and Sedition acts and Prohibition.

That being said, I'm happy to see an alternate party debate and hope it is a success.

No process is more dominated by fringe elements within the Republican and Democratic parties than the primaries. For 15 years I attended Republican caucuses in my state and organized around centrist candidates only to see the process hijacked by radicals.

Your rant about the other parties is way off the mark. The centrists have left the major parties looking for parties that the middle CAN vote for.

And I, for one, am not looking for instant change. I am working at the local level (school districts, county commissioners, state reps and senators) for victories that will make the major parties begin to pay attention again.

If you continue to stay with the major parties, you are begging to be controlled by the fringe.

Bush suggests that Kerry could debate himself for 90 minutes. This is probably true. Unfortunately Bush probably couldn't even pull that off; but the maliprops and 'Bushisms' of him debating himself would be priceless.

Is what Bush did back in 2000 against Gore. Bush had such a complete lack of understanding of the subject that at one point he just called what Gore said "Fuzzy Math", which should have been a big red beacon saying "He doesnt know what he is doing" and instead people thought he was witty and that it won the debate through personality.

I just hope he doesnt think of something equally retarded to say that will completely avoid the question, while showing how childish he can be in front of the public.

Now I personally am a two-party man. I don't particularly have difficult with the two-party system. And I believe that the best way for people who lean to third-party platforms to effect change is to work through their local elections on up.

Having said that I would quite welcome an approval voting system, whereby we can vote for as many candidates that we choose for any given office. This would allow people to safely register their support for a third-party candidate while risking becoming a "spoiler" for the candidate that they frankly would tolerate if they had to. So for example, a Nader supporter could vote for both Nader and Kerry. A Constitution party supporter could vote for Peroutka and Bush.

As a result, we could all get an honest assessment of how much support and influence these third-party candidates would receive. I would still advocate a "trigger" of, say, 5-10% before a party would receive preferential treatment with regards to public funding and/or debate access. Nevertheless, I think that grassroots efforts would be far more likely to take hold in such a system.

The CPD merely does everything the democrats and republicans jointly ask them to do. Basically neither of the parties want a real debate so they have gotten the CPD to do their dirty work and appear to be at fault.

I'm actually going to be tuning in to watch the Bradnick vs. Cobb debate. I swear everytime I listen to Bush or Kerry speak all I can think about is sports players who after a major play in their interview all say the same shit "You know I just had to get in there, try my best, give 110%, practice everyday, thank my family and god for support" blah blah blah - I want to hear someone who can talk better than I write. Someone who doesn't have all the answers on a que card, someone who's not afraid to say "i'm not sure" instead of "it'll be fine"

As a bit of background, I'm involved in Indy Media, which essentially tries to provide alternatives to mainstream/corporately-owned media. Since I was hoping to cover the debate and some of the surrounding events, I applied for media credentials. Yesterday, I got the following email from the commission:

To all recipients on this list:

The Commission on Presidential Debates appreciates your interest in covering the debates. However, at this time, your application has been denied.
Applications are declined due to security concerns, space limitations, or other reasons.

I thought I would point out that there is a similar debate occurring at Cornell on October 6th. It will include both David Cobb and Michael Badnarik as well as the candidates for the Socialist and Constitutional Parties, Walt Brown and Michael Peroutka respectively. Nader was invited but has not given an official response (although I've heard he'll be in upstate New York at the time and could show up). Anyway, the event is being covered by C-SPAN and some regional networks, so there could be some real TV coverage (both locally and nationally). These candidates are not really going to impact the national election, but it's nice to hear some different political viewpoints.

I just want to ask, how can you call your government "democracy" if there are only two parties, only two candidates? Sure, in Poland democracy is young and stupid, but at least we have few parties, few more or less stupid candidates for president, etc... most people are tired with democracy and don't go to vote, but at least we have choices... what choices are in USA? I remember Bush vs Gore, is it always "smaller evil" to choose?

Kerry don't need Bush at the debate because he can debate against himself for 90 minutes front of the audience.

And we can watch Bush flip [democrats.org]-flop [americanprogress.org] just as much. All canidates do it, except that both parties would rather watch the people argue over pointless crap ratherer than charge their prosepctive leaders with real questions about topics that matter. It's American politics, Jerry Springer style. Why ask a question about trade bias China recieves compared to Cuba concerning trade and embargo status when you can have the people steamed up over who did what during a war? Why question why America isn't being seriously persuaded to develop alternitive feuls despite dwindling reserves when the people can fight each other over gay rights? It is a tool to distract the people from what matters, so please quit falling for thier rhetoric and think for yourself.

The problem is that most Bush supporters don't know what the word "pragmatism" means. "Flip-flopping" is a 2 grade level phrase that makes it easier for the Bush supporters to understand, plus, it sounds funny! Kerry is pragmatic (look it up). Bush can't change course (ie: the disaster in Iraq), because they'd look stupider than they already do. So instead of saying "I was wrong. I made a terrible mistake. Let's fix this problem", Bush just keeps lying, saying "The war in Iraq is going great! The eco

I don't think I would expect any more from Kerry. The debates are tightly choreographed and neither candidate's "handlers" are going to allow them stray far from a safe script. So, the debates end up being more about style than substance. Which candidate looks more "presidential," more like a "leader," and makes people feel good about them. Style over substance has been the rule for these debates for a long time.

Really, it ha sbeen the rule ever since the Nixon-Kennedy debates. All the radio listeners thought Nixon did better, but all the TV viewers thought Kennedy did better - largely because of appearances and style.

Don't blame style over substance on the candidate's handlers. The candidate's advisors and aides are only trying to make him appealing to the public.
It is the public that looks for style over substance. If the public was interested in listening to a 3 hour long debate on the merits of a privitized social security system then that's what the debates would be about.

The parent isn't flamebait. The grandparent is flamebait. Why mod the responses?

My own thoughts on the debate are as follows:

- Bush will answer questions pointing to what he believes he's done well, and will generally skirt around some issues to avoid fibbing or outright lying. Expect that some legalese (i.e. responding to the exact words vs. their intended meaning) may be used to skirt around some questions.

- Kerry will answer every question by promising the moon, even if his promises are contradictory.

As for this whole dual-party setup of the debates, consider this: The panel did allow Ross Perot into the debates, and it was enough to prevent Bush Sr. from winning the election.

Thank you for being the first here to point out that third party candidates who are not kooks with less than 3% of the vote are not invited to debates, but real candidates are not shut out.

He wasn't invited because he wasn't a "kook" - he was invited only because both sides thought he would take votes away from the other guy, Turns out one side badly miscalculated. That side refused to make the same mistake in 1996, and the other side decided they didn't need the help or the distraction. The Clinton campai

Hi there. I am very interested in these "loyalty oaths" of which you speak. Could you please provide a link that provides details on this? Perhaps even the textual content of said oaths? Thanks in advance for your contribution to public enlightenment.

"Political campaigns are always eager to keep hecklers out of their pep rallies, but the Republican National Committee took that desire to a new level last week, requiring supporters to sign an oath of loyalty before receiving tickets to Saturday's New Mexico rally featuring Vice President Cheney."http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A310 19-2004Jul31.html [washingtonpost.com]

" I don't expect Bush to actually answer any of the points presented by Kerry this week anyway."

Which means he would be following the rules of the "debate." In the structure of the dog-and-pony show, the candidates will not be allowed to talk to/at each other, ony to the audience/cameras, and the only questions that can be asked are those prepared by the system, agreed upon by both sides, and asked by the people designated to do the asking (who are not the candidates).

Really. This is what happens: smaller, single-point parties get swallowed up by the whole. This is how the Republican party came about, in fact, but at that time they were the liberals and the Democrats were the conservatives! Don't believe me? See what party Abraham Lincoln represented when he entered office.

Most people fail to see that the parties are malleable. I'm guessing it's because a lot of folks here are young, and don't know history...

The democrats today are *not* the party that they were even when Kennedy was president! And the parties will continue to change as their members change. The third/forth/etc. parties serve to show where the 'extremists' are IMHO. The bigger the Green party gets, I'd be the more liberal the Democrats get. And the bigger the Libertarians get, the more Libertarian the Republicans would get. But since we've only got two parties, neither will stray very far from each other. Extremists are rarely popular.

Not that there are exceptions (witness the civil war, Hitler, etc.), but they aren't common (and the civil war was mostly because the 'lines' were drawn on geographic terms [North v. South] as well as political ones).

It's simple, if you make the ballot in enough states to possibly win the elections, you should be part of any debate. Since you can get on enough ballots simply by mobilizing regular citizens, that would open up the debates to anyone with actual grassroots support across america.

I don't have a number to suggest, but having it set that high will eventually bite them in the ass. Winning the presidency requires a majority of the electoral votes, not simply a plurality. Maine and Nebraska currently have per-district election of presidential electors, and hopefully Colorado will be following suit this year; it's only a matter of time before the country in general drops the winner-takes-all mechanism from Electoral College elections like we have already done with House elections (yes, "once upon a time...").

With that being said, in the House of Representatives the Republican Party has a majority with just under 52% of the seats, and in the Senate they have 51% even. From 2001 until 2003, no party had a majority in the Senate (there was a Democrat plurality, but that was it).

With party politics being as neck-and-neck as it is today, how long do you think it will be before no candidate wins a majority of the electoral votes? It may yet even happens this year, and when it does happen whoever comes in third is very important, no matter what kind of gap is between second and third, because three is the number of candidates presented to Congress.

Winner takes all is there because we once believed in strong state government and a weak federal government. The idea was that states would all agree to basic principles and trade freely with one another. And that the state itself would vote in a weighted system for representives. But after the civil war this antifederalism ideal lost out, and we became a unified nation with little difference between states. Pushing control of the land up to the national level. Now you can no longer escape a crappy government by moving out of state, you have to move to a different country now.

The idea was that a state of mainly Quakers wouldn't want the same laws as a state mainly of Catholics. And just because there were more Quakers (at the time) than Catholics in the US it would not be fair to the minority if federal laws were made in favor of one group even if that group was almost non-existant in a region (not many Quakers in Maryland, not many Catholics in Pennsylvania).

The constitution doesn't prohibit a powerful federal government, nor does it grant it. People (or perhaps lawyers and bankers 120ish years ago) decided they wanted a strong federal government, and that's what we got. But we still have a lot of baggage from our times as a Nation of States.

There were certainly disadvantages to almost fully autonomous states (like slavery). On the otherhand there are advantages too. It is perhaps more efficient. It gives states the ability to compete for productive citizens (what place has the best taxes, best government, etc). Thus giving individuals a choice on what set of laws they live under.

Given the current system, "Winner takes all" is perhaps not a good system. My vote would to be to dismantle most of the federal government and reinstitute the rights of States, and then just keep the current voting system. I think most people would rather have strong federal government, in that case it would be best to update the voting system to reflect this.

One thing is for sure, the current system is strategically more interesting. It's quite simular to playing a game of Risk. Where as a fair system is a much tougher game to play, because clever strategy won't yield huge gains. Just gains proportional to the amount of work put into it.

So where's the invitation to Peroutka, then? I didn't see him name mentioned in that press release, and he's on more ballots than Nader or Cobb. Last I checked, Nader wouldn't be able to muster enough electoral votes to be elected, so inviting him is going on the basis of name recognition.

Without the third parties "gumming up the debate", you won't see any debate between the "big two" candidates. What you're going to see is, as the slashdot blurb called it, a joint press conference where they agree beforehand which positions they will take, which questions they don't have to answer, and how they will argue.

In other words, there will be no value to the Bush/Kerry debate, other than to act as a launching platform for whatever catch phrases thier speechwriters want joe american to be repeating Frday morning.

And, btw, the reason they have such low chances of being elected is because they are excluded from the process. Not the other way around.

-- Scripted or not, you will see the TWO significant candidates' opposing point of views presented by the candidates themselves.

-- You will see which team has their shit together the most in a really fucking scary public display. If you somehow don't believe the debates scare the crap out of presidential candidates, you haven't been there. In 2000, Gore lost to Bush in a major way on this alone (I supported Gore before the debates).

-- This is an important way for the candidates to address truly important issues (issues important to the majority of Americans) without resorting to the name-calling and mud-slinging of ad campaigns. I do care about who lied about what and when, but eventually we have to get down to the important issues depending on this election.

The bottom line is if you watch Bush or Kerry and pay more attention to Bush's "vacant eyes" or Kerry's "botox-injected face", these debates will never matter to you, and I along with most other Americans hope you don't cast your ignorant vote...